NATO troops in Ukraine would mean war with Russia – Putin | 11 Sep 2026 | The deployment of troops from European NATO countries to Ukraine would mean a direct war with Russia, President Vladimir Putin warned, arguing that political shifts across the EU reflect growing public discontent with the policies of the Western “globalist elites.” Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in New Delhi on Friday, Putin said Europe’s current political and economic troubles are the result of “systemic mistakes” made by its leaders in foreign policy, security, and economics after the end of the Cold War. The globalist elites, Putin said, have convinced themselves that they are “at the top of Olympus” and effectively incapable of being wrong, but their mistakes have since accumulated “like a snowball.”